Due to economic considerations and convenience, consumer use of automated drying of laundered garments has increased in popularity in recent years. Not surprisingly, consumer use of dryer-activated additive compositions has also been increasing steadily. The popularity of these compositions has risen in part due to consumer desire to impart various properties to fabrics easily and quickly during the laundry process. A wide variety of ingredients have been suggested for use in laundry additive compositions to enhance the appearance and feel of fabrics. Fabric softeners provide both softening and anti-static benefits to fabrics. Perfumes deliver pleasing odors and freshness. Thus, dryer-activated additive products offer convenience, ease of use, and affordable economics to consumers as well as being superior delivery systems for desirable laundry additives such as perfumes and softeners.
In the meantime, colored items remain a large percentage of home or consumer laundered garments. These colored garments have an undesirable tendency to show appearance and color losses after multiple cycles through a laundry process. These appearance and color losses may be manifested after many multiples of cycles or only a few cycles through the laundry process. Accordingly, the usable lifetime of colored garments is reduced by the laundering process.
Accordingly, there is a need for a laundry additive composition which through the regular use of the additive composition can reduce or eliminate appearance and color losses due to the laundering process and thereby substantially increase the usable lifetime of colored garments. Also desired is a laundry additive composition which will not only reduce or eliminate color and appearance losses through regular use but which will also provide a noticeable appearance improvement to previously laundered garments which have undergone a degradation in appearance and/or color. Particularly desirable is a dryer-activated composition with the aforementioned benefits.